Tesco is expanding a scheme that gives their unsold food to charities from warehouses. Tesco is the UK’s biggest grocer and although it has not had the best of news lately, this is something that makes the supermarket stand out.

Any leftover food will be available to local charities through the UK food redistribution charity Fare Share. The food will come from 10 of Tesco’s UK stores. A lot of food was wasted last year, Tesco claimed, when those who need it could have eaten it. 55,400 tonnes of food was thrown away, 30,000 tonnes of which could have been eaten.

Since 2012, Tesco has been working with Fare Share to donate surplus food. The majority of the wastage comes from bakery items, fruit and vegetables, and convenience items such as sandwiches and salads. These foods are fresh and so it seems likely that there will be some that goes to waste.

Tesco is currently testing an app with the UK food redistribution charity Fare Share and Republic of Ireland social enterprise Food Cloud. The app allows store managers to let charities know the amount of surplus food available to them at the end of each day.

Beneficiaries will include homeless hostels, women’s refuges and children’s clubs.

In April, Tesco had the worst results in its history and ended up with a record statutory pre-tax of £6.4 billion for the year to the end of February. This compares with the year before, when it had an annual pre-tax profit of £2.26 billion.